What are the major differences between ASP.NET vs. C#

Both ASP.NET and C# are popular in the software market; let us quickly look into some of the key differences between ASP.NET and C#:

1. ASP.net was built and marketed by Microsoft, the market leader in building strong web applications in Microsoft Windows environment, a cross platform, whereas C# is a sub-set of C and C++ programming languages which are generalized by ECMA (European Computer Manufacturers Association) and ISO (International Standards Organization) standards.

2. ASP.NET functions on top of HTTP layer, a Microsoft .NET platform, whereas C#, developed by Microsoft, is a simple, yet powerful object-oriented programming language which is used to create several effective programs that support different platforms having a range of features.

3. ASP.NET contains several features such as web forms model using HTTP protocols including Session State, Page State, etc. On the other hand C# has different features such as Boolean Conditions, Garbage Collection, Assembly Versioning Properties, Events Management, Delegates, Automatic Garbage Collection (GC), Generics, Indexers, Lambda Expressions, Standard Library and Multithreading.

4. The medium for programming languages such as C# is ASP.NET as it provides APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) or libraries to make the development process faster and simpler with off the rack functionalities, whereas C# is used to write different application types including Web services, Windows applications (Standalone apps) and Web Applications.

5. ASP.NET is built to store the page sessions and state across all the pages of the website throughout the session and store all session-related data; the session can be timed out depending on the requirement of data to be made ready for the page or application state. C#, on the other hand, is used to write the implementation part of storage handling of state in the application or session in the page.

6. ASP.NET contains a component model which forms the base for the control over server-side page and server-side components rendering to the UI by rendering the content when any user makes a request through IIS (Internet Information Services), an extensile Microsoft’s web server to delegate the user requests, whereas C# controls the .NET framework’s components.

7. Though there are many component types of ASP.NET, the most important ones include Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), ASP.Net, Windows Forms, ADO.Net, Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Metadata and Assemblies, Common Type System, where C# works as the client language to use these components.

8. The application lifecycle of ASP.net is divided into several groups including the Page Life Cycle and the Application Life Cycle, in turn, these lifecycles contain groups or sub-processes that stick to some standard for the implementation of the application as per the requirement.

9. ASP.NET contains many security features in its arsenal like Authentication, Authorization, Integrity, Confidentiality which will be implemented with forms-based authentication in a .NET framework, while C# is built with object-oriented features that encapsulate the needed methods or code block or classes employing access modifiers for hiding the implementation.